Introduction to French Politics
Political science is interested in highlighting regularities that cross the political lives of the different countries observed. This is why although we will favor French political life we will also call on foreign examples to see how we all belong to close political worlds.
From India, the Philippines, Turkey, Algeria, Lebanon, Eastern Europe, United States (?), elected rulers seem by a series of measures to hollow out democracy. In the West, populist movements have seized power or are about to and are on the road to Un-freedom. Liberal democracy does not appear anymore like the wave of the future. Democracy may be at risk itself. A new vocabulary appears to qualify this evolution. Experts speak of illiberal democracy, authoritarian regime, democracy without rights (!). For these same experts, the classification of political regimes is being reworked. The gradation between liberal and illiberal democracy is replacing the old classification of political regimes firmly divided between liberal democracies and totalitarian regimes. But what saps democracy from inside? Classic democracy is wilting away with the implicit agreement of the population!
To put back democracy on the up depends of the quality of the rulers, of the capacity of the society to feed off each other, of a shared vision of the future. Nothing is written in advance in France like in others countries even if representative self-government is at a current inflexion point.
